President Trump on Tuesday doubled down on his claim that he had cut a secret deal with Mexico to stem illegal immigration — even waving a piece of paper he said it was written on — but wouldn‘t reveal any details.

“That’s the agreement that everybody says I don’t have,” Trump told reporters outside the White House as he prepared to leave for a campaign trip to Iowa.

Asked for details, Trump demurred.

“No, I’m going to let Mexico do the announcement at the right time,” he said, while insisting that the sheet of paper he pulled from the inside of his suit pocket and waved at reporters was part of the document.

“Here’s the agreement. It’s a very simple agreement. This is one page. This is one page of a very long and very good agreement for both Mexico and the United States,” he said, crediting his threat to slap tariffs on the country for what he has called a breakthrough on border security.

“Without the tariffs, we would have had nothing,” he said, before blasting The New York Times, which reported that Mexico had agreed to the terms of the deal weeks ago.

Reuters

“I don’t know where The Times got the story. I think they probably got it the probably from somebody who worked here and said how well they were doing,” he said, without elaborating, before arguing that his deal with Mexico was new.

“For a long time, for many years, people tried to get what we got in a period of a couple of days, and they couldn’t get it. That’s the difference; they couldn’t get it,” he continued.

“They have started a very strong action. They are moving right now, 6,000 soldiers to their southern border. Whoever heard of that. You think we had that two weeks ago? Two weeks ago, I’ll tell you what we had, we had nothing!” he said, disputing reports that Mexico had agreed to deploy National Guard troops to the Guatemalan border in March.

Mexican officials have said there was no secret deal with the president.